Every mayor knows that while the
concerns of taxpayers in cities are expressed in a wide variety of ways, they
generally boil down to the same basic questions: How much tax am I paying, what
am I getting for it, and is my tax money being spent wisely? In Santa Barbara,
Mayor Harriet Miller is giving her property owners the information they need to
answer those questions for themselves.

Santa Barbara is like most
cities in its desire to keep the public informed and to continually improve the
effectiveness of its communication. There are public meetings, publications and
now an Internet Web Page, and in years past, the City has published reports on
its budget to help citizens understand how revenues are used. This year,
however, the Mayor wanted to do more to achieve greater public understanding and
acceptance of the City budget; she wanted to reach every property owner in Santa
Barbara with clear and concise information on their individual role in that
budget -- i.e., the portion of each property tax dollar that is received by the
City, and what the City does with that money. Mayor Miller and other officials
felt that most taxpayers did not realize that:

The City was receiving only
about 14 cents of each property tax dollar paid and that the remainder was
going to the County, to school districts, and to the special districts and
agencies identified on the tax bills for each individual parcel; or that

Property tax revenues provide
only about 12 percent of the costs of the City services supported by the
General Fund, with the balance of the costs being covered by other revenue
sources such as sales taxes, hotel bed taxes, grants, and utility user taxes,
fees and service charges.

Using colorful pie charts, Santa
Barbara officials designed a mailing that showed the relationship between
property taxes and other revenue sources, and the breakdown of expenditures for
public services provided to residents and businesses. This mailing was
personalized for each property owner, showing the taxable assessed value of
their parcel, the approximate total annual property tax, and the contribution of
taxes on that parcel to the overall General Fund budget.

The mailing went out in June,
and Mayor Miller reports that the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
"Most property owners are surprised to learn the small amount that their
property tax provides toward the cost of a broad range of City services," she
says. "The mailing has given them a clearer picture of the importance of other
revenue sources in balancing the City's budget."

Based on the calls that have
come into City offices since the mailing, taxpayers are happy to have the
information they have been sent. Officials say a number of the calls they are
receiving concern the property tax assessment and billing process, and those are
being referred to the appropriate staff in the County Assessor/Tax Collector's
office.

Additional information on Santa
Barbara's taxpayer information initiative is available from Marcelo Lopez in the
City Administrator's Office, (805) 564-5305.